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content © 1998-
Blackmore Productions |
We
are honored to have these special liner Notes to "Winter Carols
" written by
Tony Edwards-a true Blackmore's Night fan, Ritchie's first manager and the gentleman who created Deep Purple. HARK THE HERALD ANGELS SING This glorious hymn is as full of contradictions as it is of joy. The music was composed as a cantata in 1840 by Felix Mendelssohn to celebrate the invention of Gutenberg’s printing press and was joined by Dr.William Cummings to the words written a century previously by Charles Wesley, brother to John, founder of the Methodist Church. Dr. Cummings would have braved the wrath of both Felix and Charles had they still been living for the former had specified that his song should not be used as sacred music and the latter that his words should be sung only to slow and solemn tunes. In the 18th. century hymns were set down without music and it was the task of choir masters to seek out a tune that would fit the metre of the verse.. Moreover the opening line, now the title, had itself been changed under protest, and this during Wesley’s lifetime or today we would all have been singing: “Hark, how all the welkin rings” and this to a tune also used for “Amazing Grace”. Or would we? O COME ALL YE FAITHFUL Talk about the Da Vinci Code! Could the Latin words that form the first four verses of Adeste Fideles first seen in a mid-18th.century manuscript and immediately preceded by “a prayer for James” be both a hymn and an encrypted call to faithful Jacobites to come together and overthrow the Hanoverian throne in favour of ‘James the Third’, the Old Pretender? And which came first? The music for this great hymn now found in every Christian collection or the ‘air anglois’ used for one of the satirical songs featured in “Acajou”, a Paris Theatre Comic Opera of 1744? Was John Francis Wade, music copyist and Latin and church song teacher resident in the great Catholic centre of Douay in France and whose work revolved around its English College, the original composer of the simple, forceful but entrancing melody which spread like wildfire. Claimed by both the French, misnamed the Portuguese Hymn---it was even rumoured that King John IV of Portugal had been the composer—it was written in the latter part of the 18th.century that ”apprentices in Edinburgh whistled it in every street and that even the blackbirds joined in” And of course in present times when the delayed entrance of a rock group---happily never Blackmore’s Night-- taxes the patience of an audience too far it is sung with rather different words! Finally the strange anachronism that the sixth verse can only correctly be sung on Christmas Day. I SAW THREE SHIPS The carol makes its appearance when words first published in 1666 are joined to its traditional Derbyshire tune some two hundred years later. Writer and composer are unknown. With Bethlehem landlocked much speculation has taken place about what course the writer could have conceivably plotted for the ships’ entry into the town but it is probable that they were symbols, possibly for the ‘ships of the desert’ or camels on which the Three Wise Men were mounted. Ritchie’s love of ‘Greensleeves’ is well known and possibly led him to include this song with its similar meter. WINTER (BASSE DANCE) This is one where I ask that the listener let his or her imagination run absolutely wild.. Picture the actors in almost any period costume film that you have seen but more especially one set in 15th and 16th century Burgundy or Florence. For that is where the ‘basse danse’ had its origins... Or let’s make the journey shorter by visiting some of their English Tudor contemporaries as portrayed by Bette,Cate and Helen-- Flynn,Fiennes and Irons---Candice heading up the column of queenly monarchs and Blackmore the line of nobles. Arms extended, hands touching they glide with small studied steps down and around the vast parquet floor, back feet brought level with the leading ones and their heads inclining towards each other as a sequence is completed. And within those small bows, that pressure of the fingers and the subtle eye contact all manner of things are determined.. Advances are accepted, conspiracies formed, alliances seeded, deceptions perpetrated ---- not to mention set lists conceived and touring dates planned.. My apologies for going completely over the top but I let Blackmore’s Night transport me to another age of which they were already part… Try it. DING-DONG MERRILY ON HIGH George Ratcliffe Woodward gave more than full rein to his interest in bell-ringing when he added the words to this 16th.century dance tune urging and squeezing the rhyme forwards in its lesser known second verse : E’en so here below, below Let steeple bells be swungen And “io, io, io” By priests and people sungen School children love the onomatopoeic peal of the title and the struggle for Olympian swimmer sub-aqua breath control that sees them across the “Gloria” finishing line. More familiar with the tune than the still to be learnt Hebrew of the verse young Jewish kids would sing: MA-O-TZUR y'shu-a-ti The cat's in the cupboard and it can't see me And even today, when put to an impromptu test, three septuagenarians and two sixty year olds warbled the second line response in exactly the same way! Ritchie and Candice chose this song sang at Chanukah—an end of year Feast of Lights, which celebrates the victory of the Maccabees and commemorates the miracle of the few drops of holy oil that burned for eight whole days during the ensuing re-dedication of the Temple--as an affirmation of their inclusive approach to the Holiday season GOOD KING WENCESLAS A 13th.century tune from Finland, first published in a 16th.century Swedish collection of church and school songs was uncovered by John Mason Neale and in 1853 he wrote the Wenceslas lyrics to it . The carol chronicles the true goodness of a 10th.century Bohemian Duke in his kindness to a poor peasant and his solicitude for a page. The events take place on the day after Christmas---St.Stephen’s Feast Day for some and Boxing Day to others. Now just how good was the King--or Duke Vaclav as was his real title? Well, pretty good it would seem. The peace and security of his people were of great importance to him and he even laid his own life on the line when he offered to meet his most persistent enemy in single combat in order to put an end to a series of murderous raids. He clothed the poor, bought freedom for slaves and sheltered pilgrims. He was devoted to Christianity in Bohemia, building churches and opposing the pagan nobles who oppressed its followers. His people thought him kind and holy. But unfortunately his younger brother, Boleslav saw things otherwise and had him assassinated in 929 A.D. However his essential goodness was more than its own reward for not only did Boleslav repent, become a Christian and have Vaclav’s remains enshrined in Prague but by the 11th.century the Good King had been created Patron Saint of Bohemia. Neale’s lyrics have been described as doggerel and commonplace--whereas the tune has been extolled as flowing, festive and compellingly attractive. But the story of Wenceslas continues to delight a vast audience whilst the Spring carol that had been set to the same music in the 16th.century as was the quite recent “Gentle Mary Laid Her Child”, a Canadian authored carol published in 1919, both of which were highly praised, do not. LORD OF THE DANCE/SIMPLE GIFTS In 1848 Elder Joseph Brackett,Jr. of the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing----more commonly known as the Shakers-- based at that time in Alfred, Maine composed Simple Gifts., a work song with the swaying rhythm of dancing prayer. Given one of the Shaker principles, that of separation from the world,could he ever have dreamed,hoped or desired that his song would live on to achieve the status of an American classic? Variations of its tune conclude Appalachian Spring, Aaron Copland’s ballet for Martha Graham first performed in 1944 and Copland used it for a second time in 1950 in his set of Old American Songs for voice and piano. From 1959 onwards it was the theme music for the CBS News documentary series. And in 1996 it was played as the newly re-elected President Clinton and his family were greeted by celebrating crowds in Little Rock, AK as they emerged from the Govenor’s mansion.. Maybe in the words of Elder Brackett’s song the President had “come down where (he) ought to be” but I am not so sure about another Shaker principle--that of celibacy!. Many contemporary Christian denominations both in and outside America have incorporated the tune into hymns under various names and these include "Lord of the Dance," composed in 1963 by Sydney Carter, an English poet and songwriter. There is even a neo-Pagan version. with the same title. It is said that the influence of English folk song tradition is immediately evident and that there are even reminiscences of mediaeval and Renaissance style throughout the Shaker repertoire. With the Blackmore’s Night rendering of Simple Gifts they have undoubtedly got stronger. WE THREE KINGS (of Orient Are) An American work written by Rev.John Henry Hopkins in 1857 as part of a New York City paegant. The main debate continued by the carol is who exactly were the Magi. Priests, Wise Men or Astrologers, the names Melchior, Balthasar and Gaspar as representative of the African, Asian and European peoples only begin to emerge some five hundred years after the Birth of Christ. Their journies were certainly driven by belief in the prophesies of a Messiah made many centuries previously. Ritchie and his friends used to sing this carol as they went from door to door during the holiday to earn money. Fortunate for him perhaps in avoiding a clip round the ear that they did so in the South of England for children throughout the ages have created parodies around certain carols and this one has been treated particularly mischievously by Liverpudlians of the North. There are no prizes offered for the correct solution as to what garment was being offered for sale in the first two lines of a verse which ends with.... ........So fantastic, no elastic Buy your grannie a pair. WISH YOU WERE HERE No,not the song from the 1975 Pink Floyd album of the same name but one from the 1995 “Sex and Violins” album by Rednex. I have trawled the net but have still to find a word in praise of this ‘country meets techno’ Swedish ‘manufactured’ group. And the song itself has been called a “schlocky Euro-ballad” unrelated to the album. Now I’ve known Ritchie a long time. I believe that whereas he accepts musical labels as a necessary descriptive evil he has never allowed them to be restrictive. He is always ready to seek out that ‘beauty of form, harmony and expression of emotion’ regarded by the Ancient Greeks as the essence of Music wherever, regardless of origin, they are to be found. And if he together with Candice saw the seeds of those qualities in the original and could take and turn it into a thing of true beauty moulding it to their expression of that wish felt by all separated at Christmas time from those that they love then we here learn to look and to listen with a bit more nous. (O COME, O COME) EMMANUEL An Advent hymn the origins of which go back as far as the 9th. century. Its monastic authors were also cryptologists and the first letter of each of the seven original Latin verses read backwards translates as “Tomorrow I shall be there” Five of these verses form a 12th.century hymn which was translated into English by John Mason Neale (who also wrote Good King Wenceslas) in 1851 The hymn tune is believed to be French and was added to the Latin text in the 15th.century. I hear the work on two levels. I know its writers were invoking the second coming of Christ (Emmanuel) but I cannot help but think how those same Latin verses with their Old Testament references could have encompassed the condition and suffering of Holocaust victims and what must have been their prayers for divine intervention. CHRISTMAS EVE They could so easily have passed it over by for it was far removed from the other tracks on the Rednex album. But I’ve known Ritchie for a long time and he has never let his appreciation of music be restricted by anything other than his own ears. He has always been ready to seek out that ‘beauty of form, harmony and expression of emotion’ regarded by the Ancient Greeks as the essence of Music wherever, regardless of origin, it was to be found. And
together with Candice he saw those qualities in the original, took
it and turned it into a thing of true beauty, delighting its composer
and transformed here into an expression of the wish so deeply felt
by all who are separated at Holidays from those that they love. |
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